Dionne Warwick, Foreigner and more artists join Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has been honoring iconic musicians for more than four decades. A new class of inductees will officially enter the Rock Hall on Saturday, Oct. 19 at the induction ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio. Dionne Warwick, Cher, Mary J. Blige, Foreigner and the Dave Matthews Band are recognized among 2024's group of genre-diverse performing artists.

The new episode of ABC News' "Impact x Nightline," which premiered on Thursday, Oct. 10, takes a close look at the music and legacy of 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees.

In 83-year-old Dionne Warwick's decades-long music career, she has earned five Grammy Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Kennedy Center Honor.

Growing up in a gospel-singing family, including her aunt Cissy Houston and her cousin Whitney Houston, Warwick said music was in her DNA. Her soulful sound propelled her to hit after hit across decades, including the 1985 charity single "That's What Friends are for," raising millions of dollars for AIDS awareness.

As the first African-American artist to have a dozen consecutive top 100 hit singles, Dionne Warwick is a hometown hero in New Jersey. Her former elementary school in East Orange was renamed the Dionne Warwick Institute after her in 1996. This September, Warwick was honored at the inaugural New Jersey Arts Icon Award, where she performed her 1966 hit song "What the World Needs Now is Love."

"Dionne Warwick is a trailblazer," Grammy-nominated singer Deborah Cox told "Nightline." "There is no one that has a voice like her that has had the career that she's had. She's been able to touch many different audiences globally. She's very unique in that sense."

After being nominated three times, Warwick's reaction to being inducted into the Hall of Fame was surprise.

"It was hysterical," Warwick told "Nightline." "I feel, 'Third strike you're out,' and they finally got it right. I never felt that I had belonged in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but it's something that is a very prestigious award, and I am thrilled they think I'm a rock and roller."

Warwick's reaction is not uncommon. In recent years, the Hall of Fame has received more attention for its seemingly mismatched inductee classes, such as Tina Turner, Carole King and Jay-Z in 2021, and Sheryl Crow, Rage Against the Machine and Missy Elliott last year.

"It's such an incredible honor," Jay-Z said during his speech at the 2021 induction ceremony. "Growing up we ain't think we can be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We were told that hip-hop was a fad."

MTV co-founder John Sykes has been the chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation since 2020, and he believes that Rock & Roll is an inclusive genre.

"The best way to describe rock and roll, it's not one sound," Sykes said. "You can see it over the years… rock and roll is an ever-changing sound and spirit."

That "ever-changing" sound is reflected in this year's class. Warwick will be inducted for Musical Excellence along with rock band MC5, the late songwriter Norman Whitfield and the late Jimmy Buffet. The performer category is equally wide-ranging, including the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul" Mary J. Blige and Cher, the only woman to have a number one hit on the Billboard chart in each of the past seven decades.

Filling out the rest of the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Performer category are The Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, A Tribe Called Quest, Ozzy Osbourne and Kool and the Gang.

Chuck D, a member of the hip-hop group Public Enemy, will be introducing the band Kool and the Gang at the induction ceremony this year. He and his group were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013.

"When rockers come out and say that somebody like Donna Summer or Tribe Called Quest is not rock, I tell them, 'Yeah, you might be right, but it's the roll.' It's the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame," Chuck D said.

Since the Hall of Fame was created in 1983, a nominating committee made of music industry experts and insiders create a ballot of artists each year to be inducted. An artist becomes eligible 25 years after the release of their first record. The inductees also get their own exhibits at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland, where rock and roll was born in the early 1950s.

"As a rock musician, there are two goals that you want to achieve," said Al Greenwood, a founding member of the rock band Foreigner, one of this year's inductees. "The first one is to headline at Madison Square Garden for a sold-out show, and then number two is getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame… and then being around to enjoy it is the key."

The band, known for hits "Feels Like the First Time" and "Cold As Ice," became eligible for induction in 2002 and they have been knocking on the door ever since. Two of the founding members, Ed Gagliardi and Ian McDonald, died in 2014 and 2022 respectively. In fact, 45% of this year's inductees will be honored posthumously.

"Why we had to wait so long is still beyond me," Greenwood said. "I would have rather this happened years ago when we were all healthy. Just six years ago, we were doing the reunion tour."

The band got a boost this year from leader Mick Jones' stepson, Mark Ronson, who rallied celebrities such as Jack Black and Paul McCartney to help remind the Rock Hall of Foreigner's greatness.

Other artists, such as the Dave Matthews Band, looked to their audiences for support. The band's fiercely loyal fan base propelled them to win the Rock Hall's online fan vote twice, making them the only band to ever do so.

"If you have a fan club that's just really active," Sykes said. "You can get your artist in because they have a very powerful fan club."

The Hall of Fame also recognizes industry giants working behind the scenes through the Ahmet Ertegun Award, which will honor producer Suzanne de Passe this year. There are also this year's Musical Influence inductees, all of whom were blues musicians: Alexis Korner, John Mayall and Big Mama Thornton.

"The true icons of the industry have embraced me and made me one of their babies," Dionne Warwick said. "I cannot tell you how completely grateful I am for that."

ABC News' Tara Guaimano, Marjorie McAfee, and Lauren DiMundo contributed to this report.